Lafayette 148 New York Pre-Fall 2023

At Lafayette 148, creative director Emily Smith continues to mine the history of the brand’s namesake address building. They had discovered that before it was a garment factory, it had been a printing press, and their whole collection was subsequently inspired by paper. Well it turns out that before that, in the 1920s, the building housed a post office for all of Lower Manhattan. “So I thought ‘let’s dive into that,’ and my team came back with all these great little ideas,” Smith revealed during an appointment at the label’s showroom. For pre-fall, she and her team dove into the (almost-forgotten) art of sending handwritten notes, and the wonderful world of stationery. Smith approaches her inspiration in a multi-sensory way. So while a print inspired by vintage postcards might seem a little obvious, her execution was anything but. On a finely pleated knit skirt the print was applied in bands of different widths, creating a deconstructed collaged effect. It was paired with a matching cashmere sweater where the print had been blown up, and the sweater itself had been “sort of overwashed” so it had a worn-in, fuzzy texture. Its not-quite-matchy-matchy-ness had a wonderfully odd and youthful spirit about it. Elsewhere, the same print was turned into a handsome monochrome brown-on-tan print on cotton, and into a tonal champagne jacquard print on silk, and blue-on-blue denim, all evoking different emotions.